


Silence

by Masu_Trout



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Anal Sex, Augmentations Kink, But Boy Is There Pining, Casual Sex, Emotionally Repressed, Kneeling, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not a Lot of Plot in This Porn, Oral Sex, Pining While Having Casual Sex, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-13 01:28:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18458645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: In the aftermath of the London attack, Jim Miller's found himself drafted into battles on two separate fronts: TF29's director by day, Adam's co-conspirator by night. It's a high-stress life, and that means that sometimes the two of them find some stress relief.(It doesn'tmeananything. Really. It doesn't.)





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spacehopper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/gifts).



The first time Jim ended up in bed with Adam was an accident.

It also didn't really involve a bed—just the two of them pressed up against a yellowed wall in a secluded safehouse, Jim taking in each of Adam's desperate, quiet noises while he worked their cocks together in his fist.

It had been a mistake, Jim told himself after, when the scrape of Adam's stubble against Jim's neck and the heat of his skin when he bucked into Jim's hand had gone from overwhelming reality to shame-tinged memory. An embarrassment, a horrible lapse in judgment, a betrayal of his position as Adam's superior and _it wasn't going to happen again_.

His resolve lasted all of three weeks, until the night when Adam—eyes uncovered, looking as tired as Jim had ever seen him, trapped in TF29's medbay after taking a full-on EMP blast and a full round from an SMG for good measure—caught Jim's wrist as he rose from the stiff-backed chair next to Adam's hospital bed and said, "Wait. Stay."

(Adam, it turned out, could short security cameras with those augments of his. Good for Jim's dignity, bad for his self-control.)

It was a dangerous habit to fall into. Hell, half a decade ago Jim would've verbally torn apart anyone who dared suggest it of him; sleeping with a subordinate wasn't just unethical, it was the stupidest way and most easily-avoidable method there was of destroying one's own career.

But Jim found it hard to care about his career the way he had years or even months ago. The London clusterfuck had opened his eyes to TF29's slimy, dangerous underbelly, and it was hard for Jim to care what his superiors might think of his sex life when those same superiors were throwing away human lives like trash. 

Adam, too, wasn't exactly a _subordinate_ anymore; on the field and in the office he took orders as well as he ever had (which was to say rarely, and only when he wanted to), but the quiet hours of the morning he'd become Jim's partner in a much more dangerous mission. The two of them compared mission intel and Manderley's instructions, tracked the ever-shifting web of loosely interconnected terrorists attacks, and took stock of information Adam brought back from sources he still refused to name. 

Together, it all painted a frightening picture: TF29 wasn't the place Jim had believed in all these years. The good he'd thought he'd been doing in the world had added up to—nothing, or so close to nothing it hardly counted. Time and time again Jim had put his life on the line on the orders of people who'd casually, unthinkingly ordered his death the moment he was no longer useful to them.

(No wonder he found Adam hard to resist. It was hardly strange to want physical comfort, as casual and meaningless as it might be, from the one person he had no choice but to trust.)

Tonight they were at Adam's. The lights were low; the blinds were closed; and the whole apartment, Adam assured him every time he asked, was completely free of bugs. The two of them were sitting on Adam's overstuffed leather sofa—they'd started out on opposite ends with sheafs of paper and four stolen ( _borrowed_ , according to Adam) pocket secretaries spread out on the cushions between them, but they'd drifted closer and closer as the night wore on and they passed information back and forth.

Ten years ago, he would've spent his Saturday night drinking with friends. Three years ago, he would've been tucking the kids into bed right about now. His entire life had been overturned, now, and Jim couldn't say he liked the change. 

At least the company was... tolerable.

As if on cue, Adam shifted. He glanced Jim's way, the golden rings in his eyes catching the dim light, and said, "I don't think we're finding anything more tonight. Might be worth calling it."

Jim sighed. He couldn't disagree. This particular lead was proving to be more of a brick wall than a way forward, and it was frustrating as hell to beat his head against dead ends for so long without the slightest glimpse of progress. The Dvali were sneaking shipments of augments through the local PD and their pet officers were passing them on out of Prague, but from there the trail led... where?

Reluctantly, he set the Glass Reader he'd been poking through down on the coffee table.

"Probably for the best," he groaned. His eyes burned from exhaustion; he rubbed at them both with the heels of his palms, trying to force back the stinging discomfort. "I don't know how you see in this light, anyway."

Almost as soon as he said it, he realized his mistake, but Adam didn't look annoyed. He only offered Jim the barest hint of a wry smile and said, dry as a desert, "I'm not sure I'd recommend my way of getting rid of eye strain."

"Yeah," Jim said, "I think I'll stick to eye drops."

Adam interlaced his fingers and stretched his arms in front of him, a familiar motion made strange by the sleek metal expanse of his arms. His knuckles weren't going to pop, his muscles weren't going to relax; perhaps it felt good on his shoulders? Or maybe it was just some ritual left over from when he'd had arms that could get tired after too long holding a book in the same cramped position.

There was a lot about Adam's body he still didn't know. For all that... this _thing_ between them was showing no signs of stopping, it hadn't made Adam any more comfortable about stripping out of his armor—or the trenchcoat that was as good as armor, depending on the day—around Jim. Everything they did, they did clothed: Adam wouldn't hesitate before dropping to his knees to suck Jim off, or stroking him through the fabric of his underwear, but the moment Jim so much as brushed his arm Adam always pulled away. The most Jim had been allowed to touch was his cock and a thin strip of skin on his stomach, and he still remembered the way that felt—the flat planes of muscle there, the sweat beading his skin. Sometimes, when he'd been stuck at work for _far_ too long, he imagined slipping both hands under Adam's shirt and rucking it up as he ran them across Adam's chest.

 _Stupid_ , of course. Jim wasn't going to risk the one last uncomplicated thing in his life by acting like an ass. But for a passing thought, it had proven hard to shake.

Adam was looking at him now. Belatedly, Jim realized he'd been staring. He let his gaze jump sideways, to catch Adam's eye and hold it, and he had an idea of just where this night was going to go—

—and Adam stood, unsteadily, shredding the tension like a cobweb.

"You want a beer?" he asked.

"I—sure," Jim said, feeling like he'd missed something and entirely at a loss as to what.

At the fridge, Adam rattled off an impressive list of brews—Svobody, Dai-Taiga, Changuch—and, once Jim had picked, made his way back to the couch with a bottle in either hand. He popped the caps off both with the side of his hand and handed one over to Jim.

It was cold, and the taste was decent enough, but most importantly it let him focus on something other than the body on the couch next to him. Or, at least, it _should_ have; Jim still caught himself glancing at Adam out of the corner of his eye every so often. No one should be allowed to look this good sprawled out on a sofa at half-past midnight.

He'd assumed this was how the rest of their night would go, sitting together in awkward silence as they drank away their frustration together, but before long Adam took one last long swig of his beer and set the empty bottle on the coffee table. He turned towards Jim, a heat back in his eyes, and let his hand fall to Jim's thigh.

Jim swallowed. This situation was... odd. It was difficult, sometimes, to follow Adam's strange, subtly shifting moods. But all the same— _yes_ , he wanted. More than he was willing to admit.

"You're sure—" he started.

" _Yes_ , I'm sure."

Already Adam was moving, sliding to the floor to kneel between Jim's knees. So Adam wanted to suck him off tonight, then.

Jim shivered at the intent look in Adam's eyes. He could work with that. 

Adam caught Jim's bottle, still half-full, and set on the table next to his own without so much as looking. (Jim couldn't decide if he was glad he hadn't drunk more or wishing he'd slammed back another few bottles; on one hand, he wanted to be sober for this, but on the other... he very much didn't.) His hands traced up Jim's thighs, making him shiver.

Feeling unsure, Jim kept his own hands hovering at his sides until Adam reached blindly out and nudged them towards his head. 

Adam's hair was thick and smooth, and he sucked in a sharp breath when Jim buried his hands in it. He scratched at Adam's scalp, enjoying for a moment the feel of Adam's skin against his, and then gave his hair a tug just to hear the moan that slipped from Adam's mouth.

He'd been wanting this all night. Hell, if he was being honest with himself, he'd been wanting this all _week_.

Jim groaned as Adam leaned in and mouthed at his cock through through the layers of fabric. The vague sensation was just enough of a tease to make his pulse leap and his cock twitch. Adam glanced up at him from under his lashes, somehow smirking at him despite not smiling at all, and licked a sloppy line up and across the bulge of Jim's trapped erection.

"Tease," Jim groaned.

"Mmm." Adam pulled away just long enough to respond. "What, this isn't enough?"

When Jim glared at him, the corner of his mouth pulled up into a brief, barely-there smile that changed his whole face.

"Well, wouldn't want to disappoint the boss," he said, and got to work in earnest.

For a moment Jim hoped Adam might touch him again—the brushes he got from Adam's augmented hands, no matter how brief, always felt better than they had any right to—but instead Adam caught the button of Jim's pants between his teeth and worked it open with his mouth. (Jim could hardly call that a _disappointment_ , anyway, given how it looked when Adam pulled down Jim's underwear with his teeth.)

Jim's cock bobbed as it sprang free. He was already half-hard, and it wasn't going to be _half_ for much longer with Adam's mouth so close. He shifted his hips, trying to guide Adam closer, and groaned when Adam pressed his lips to the head of his cock.

 _Come on,_ he thought, desperate. _Please—_

Adam opened his mouth, swallowing Jim down, and he couldn't stay quiet anymore.

"Fuck," he hissed, fingers tightening in Adam's hair. "Fuck, _Adam_."

The heat of his mouth, the slick drag of his tongue against the underside of Jim's cock; it was all too good, too much. Some fiercely possessive part of Jim wanted to thrust into Adam's mouth, hold him still while he used his throat—but then Adam was moving, and all he could think was, _Yes, yes_.

He swallowed around Jim's cock, taking in as much as he could. Just the sight of it—Adam's mouth stretched obscenely around him, his cheeks flushed, his lips red and slick with spit—was enough to have Jim biting the corner of his cheek. He was nearly fifty years old; he was a professional. He...

Adam made a rough, needy noise as he slid further down, and Jim's pulse jumped.

He was a goddamn teenager again when it came to Adam, was what he was.

When his cock hit the back of Adam's throat, Adam stopped a moment; he just stared up at Jim with his gold-ringed eyes hazed over with lust. Jim pulled one hand away from Adam's hair to stroke his cheek. He could feel, just slightly, the bulge of his own cock where Adam's tongue was pressing against it.

"You look so good," he breathed, quietly, half-afraid he might break the spell if he spoke too long. "Perfect. Come on, Adam. Let me feel you move."

Adam moaned around Jim's cock. One of his sleek hands slid between his own legs; the angle was wrong for Jim to watch, but he felt Adam's gasp and for one brief moment all he wanted in the world was to be able to see what Adam was doing now: grinding against his clothed erection with the palm of one of his strange, perfect hands; rutting against himself desperately, needily, like there was nothing in the world that turned him on more that kneeling here on the floor and sucking his boss off.

He pulled back on Jim's cock in one slow, languid movement, then slid back down every bit as smoothly. The rhythm he set was just enough to build; not the kind of desperate hands-and-mouths affair they sometimes ended up in when it was a mission gone very nearly wrong, but not lazy either. All Jim could do was lay back and let it build, tug at Adam's hair and run his hands down his cheeks and mumble a stream of praises and pleas and desperate noises that he'd _never_ admit to having made.

It wouldn't be long before he came. His pulse was pounding in his ears; his thighs felt like they were trembling. Jim tugged on Adam's hair in warning. "Adam, I..."

He'd expected Adam would pull away, let him finish himself off with his hand. Instead, Adam's eyes fell closed for a minute, and then he swallowed heavily and slid further down onto Jim's cock than he'd ever tried for before. There was only the smallest sliver left. If he managed just a little bit further, he'd be speared entirely on Jim's cock, left with his pressed against Jim's skin. And he wanted Jim to—

"Fuck," he hissed. 

One short, sharp roll of his hips, another, and then he was spilling down Adam's throat, gasping as he came with Adam swallowing him down. 

It was just on the edge of too much: Adam's mouth around him, Adam's hair in his grasp, Adam kneeling between his legs and looking like something carved out of marble and yet all too alive. He wanted to freeze this moment, hold onto it; there was nothing else he could think about now, no regrets or worries or fear, just pleasure pulsing through him and his voice, working without conscious thought, murmuring, "Adam, Adam, Adam."

Adam worked him with his tongue, with the warmth of his mouth, until finally the peak of his orgasm crashed and he was sensitive and aching. He backed off when Jim pushed clumsily at him, letting Jim's cock slip from his mouth with a wet, obscene noise, and sat there, unmoving, still between Jim's legs.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them moved. This had been... close to what Jim was used to with Adam, and yet so fucking far from it that it wasn't even in the same galaxy. He'd never come inside Adam's mouth like that; he'd never so overwhelmingly _wanted_ Adam, beyond logic or sense or pure physical desire.

If he kissed Adam now, Adam would taste like him. The thought made him shiver.

Adam was looking at him still—heat in eyes as he focused intently on Jim, his mouth hanging half-open and his breathing harsh. His hands flexed at his sides as he knelt there, and Jim _knew_ he was being a sap but he couldn't help but imagine Adam wanted to touch him just as badly as he wanted to feel Adam's hands right now.

It was unfair. Jim hadn't done any of the work, and his mouth still felt dry.

He was gorgeous like this, all the more perfect for the sweat beading on his forehead and the tousled look to his hair. There was a human under all of that stoicism, no matter how badly he tried to play the unshakable statue, and right now Jim was certain that if he could work up the stupidity or the courage to pull Adam into his lap he'd find him achingly hard still.

With a shake of his head, some part of Adam seemed to close back off. He swallowed, running a hand across his mouth—looking, for a moment, very nearly embarrassed—and began to push himself back to his feet. Jim knew what would happen next; he'd come back to himself over the course of the next few minutes, closing further and further off, and they'd make more awkward small talk until finally it had been long enough for Jim to leave the apartment without making things even more uncomfortable. Next week or the week after they'd do something like this again, here or at Jim's place or in some dingy apartment TF29 owned and had forgotten about, who even knew what their schedule looked like anymore, and they'd never go further than this and they'd _never_ breathe a word about it.

There was a certain sort of appeal to that: simplicity, ease, the luxury of never having to talk about what the hell this meant. But Jim watched Adam move, watched him try to pull himself back together, and—fuck it.

 _Fuck it_ , Jim thought. He grabbed the lapels of Adam's coat as Adam stood and pulled him in for a kiss.

It was a clumsy, awkward thing, a mistake in every sense of the word; Adam's mouth didn't so much as meet Jim's as crash into it, and there was very suddenly a metal knee pressing at an odd angle into Jim's side. Adam fumbled awkwardly against Jim for a moment—tracing over his shoulders, grabbing at his shirt collar—and then his hands found the sides of Jim's face and cupped his cheek.

Adam should have pushed him away. Jim'd expected a quick, brutal rejection. But instead Adam realigned their bodies and pressed his mouth tighter against Jim's, and suddenly this was a real, proper kiss.

All rational thought fled Jim's head when Adam opened his mouth to him; instinct, instinct and mindless _want_ , forced back his nerves and his lingering shame. Adam still tasted like him, and when Jim shifted his hips he could feel Adam's erection pressing into his side. 

(He had to be so desperate for it by now. Jim wanted to touch him so badly he ached.)

"Adam," Jim gasped into the kiss. His hands drifted up, stroking the line of his collar, sliding against the sleek black lines that ran in parallel down his neck. _Let me—_

And Adam pulled back just as suddenly, jerking away from Jim's touch like he'd been burned.

"Jim," he said, voice hoarser than Jim had ever heard it before.

He was staring hungrily at Jim, pupils wide, hips rocking against Jim's in slow, near-unconscious movements. For a moment Jim thought ( _hoped_ ) Adam might lean back in and kiss him again, but in the space between one second and the next his face went as cold and unmoving as a statue's. 

"Boss. Look..." Adam pulled back from Jim as he spoke.

" _Adam_."

"I'm... I don't think this is a good idea."

It wasn't, of course it wasn't, but hearing Adam say it felt like a physical blow.

"I'm sorry." Jim let his hands fall to his sides, pressing them against the leather to keep himself for reaching out to Adam. "It won't happen again."

Already Adam was clambering out of Jim's lap. He stood, looked down at Jim, and then—face still eerily blank, looking as if even he wasn't sure what his body would do next—he took two long strides towards the kitchen, putting some real distance between himself and Jim.

"No," he said, "I'm the one who should apologize."

"You don't need to. Just—"

 _Just pretend this never happened_ , Jim could have said. _Just come sit back down. Just let me stay._

He didn't get to finish his sentence. Adam shook his head, looking down at his kitchen counter instead of at Jim and said, "I think—we're done for the night. It's late. You should probably go home."

Everything had gone strangely unreal. An hour ago he'd been sitting next to Adam in comfortable silence. A minute ago he'd been in the middle of the best kiss he'd had in—god, how many years?—and wondering whether something in his life might be going right for once.

Now, the man in front of him looked like a stranger. Part of Jim wanted to plead. Just moment longer, just one chance to try and talk this out...

He'd never been willing to beg. Especially not when he didn't know what he was supposed to be begging _for_.

"Sure," Jim said, faux-casual. "You're right. It's late. Just give me a minute."

Jim stood. He went for a moment to Adam's bathroom, where he zipped his pants back up and tried to force his hair not to look completely mussed. Once he looked only _somewhat_ like a man who'd just had his brains sucked out through his cock and then been thrown out of a flat, he braved the main room once more. He collected the files he'd brought, his bag, and his shoes—resolutely not looking at Adam all the while—and made his way to the door.

He stopped with his hand on the door. "I'll see you Monday."

It shouldn't have been a question. It came out sounding like one anyway. The very idea of Adam up and leaving TF29 over something as small as this was _ridiculous_ , of course... but the Adam standing across from him right now, head bowed and eyes downcast, was someone he didn't know.

But Adam just blinked, looking almost surprised to hear Jim's voice, and said, "Yeah. Monday."

Jim opened the door. As he stepped outside, into Prague's early-morning dark, Adam spoke one more time. "I'm... I really am sorry."

It was an opening, maybe. Right now, Jim didn't feel ready to take it. 

"No problem," he said. "Just make it to the office on time Monday," and then the door closed behind him and he was alone.

Prague at night felt different without Adam walking him to the station. Colder. Quieter. 

Jim sighed. He rubbed tiredly at his face. And then, without glancing back at the apartment behind him, he headed out.

* * *

That night, he didn't get much sleep. He spent most of it sitting in the book-lined alcove under his stairs, stewing over a bottle of wine, torn between confusion and regret and anger. 

He hadn't imagined Adam's reaction. He was sure of that; the memory of how he'd clutched at Jim as he panted into his mouth was burned vividly into Jim's head. Adam had wanted it as much as he did, right up until the moment when he brushed his hands across Adam's augs. 

At first he was furious with himself--he'd known, hadn't he, that Adam acted strange and skittish about his augments? Why the hell hadn't he left well enough alone? As the night turned into morning and more and more of the bottle found its way into his glass, though, he found himself stewing over Adam too. If he didn't want anything more from Jim, if this whole _agreement_ between them had been nothing more than a way to pass the time or some strange form of pity, then he could have told Jim so tonight. Even if he'd shut him down or laughed in his face, it would have been better than _this_ : staring down at a glass, alone, dreading what Monday would bring. 

The sun was already filtering through his windows by the time Jim dragged himself to bed. His last thought before he fell into unconsciousness--between the fuzziness and the slowly-growing ache that was sure to turn into a nightmarish hangover--was that maybe this wouldn't have to affect anything. Maybe Adam would bounce from whatever crisis he'd had in his apartment and they'd be able to continue like nothing had happened.

He thought about that for a moment: back to impersonal touches, brief moments of heat, and carefully avoiding the subject. Back to never acknowledging what he wanted. 

Never kissing Adam again, and telling himself he was fine with that.

Jim groaned, throwing a hand across his face. 

_Fuck._

* * *

Sunday Jim spent working off his worst hangover since the day his divorce papers came through. Monday, tired and fuzzy-headed, still feeling like death warmed over, he went into work. 

Jim arrived at six. It wasn't until half-past-nine that there was a familiar knock at his office door. Only one person's hands sounded like that.

Jim steeled himself. "Jensen. Come in."

Adam looked... mostly the same. Professional. Put together. Certainly he looked better than Jim felt. Maybe there was a hint of something, wariness or concern, in the way he held himself, but with his eyes covered it was hard to tell.

"Boss." He stepped into Jim's office. "There's some info on the Nováková case you should look at. I sent you an email."

"Good to know." He'd get to it once he'd worked down the rest of his mountainous pile of paperwork; Adam knew as well as he did that the Nováková case wasn't high-priority enough to warrant his immediate attention. "Anything else?"

Adam hesitated a moment. His head turned, scanning for something Jim couldn't see.

"And... if you're free Friday, I've got news on the Portunalia case too."

Portunalia. Code for their work _outside_ of TF29. Things were going to back to normal, then. 

Jim nodded, told himself he wasn't disappointed, and said, "Understood. We'll discuss it then."

Friday, then. Five days until--closure, of a sort, no matter what ended up happening. No use in worrying about something he couldn't change; still, even after Adam left the room, he found it hard to focus. 

* * *

The week went by in a blur, agonizingly slow and far-too-quick all at once. Jim wasn't sure exactly what he was waiting _for_ ; by the time he found himself back in front of that familiar apartment door, he still had no idea.

Why the hell had he showed up tonight? What did he think was going to happen?

...What did he _want_ to happen?

Adam threw open the door with a brusque nod, letting Jim in quickly; every moment Jim hung around outside Adam's place was a moment that could put them both in danger. The shades were up tonight, dark and cold and inscrutable, but beyond them was just the slightest hint of—something. He was carrying himself differently than usual.

Jim followed Adam in, slipping off his shoes in the entrance. For a moment he let himself stand there, taking in the details of Adam's apartment: the fan overhead spinning lazily, the last of the late evening light filtering through the blinds, the piled-up books and the notes on the fridge and a hundred other little details that made this place Adam's. He'd never realized how oddly calming he found it until he'd thought he'd never be invited in again; for all he'd tried to personalize his own place, it felt cold and clinical in comparison.

"Hope I'm not late," he said. He wasn't, they both knew it, but at this point he just needed to force himself to break the silence.

Adam was leaning against his kitchen counter, looking Jim's way with his eyes still hidden. For a moment the quiet drew back in, as thick than the fog over the Vltava River and far more stifling, and then he sighed and said, "Look. Jim. _Miller_."

"Jim," Jim said. Stupid of him, unprofessional as hell—but he liked how his name sounded on Adam's lips.

"Jim." Adam folded his arms across his chest. "I... I owe you an apology."

"I thought we had a case to work on." The words came out sharper than he'd intended, and Adam grimaced.

"Yeah. We do. Eventually. But _someone_ likes to lecture me about the importance of team cohesion, so."

Of course he'd choose _now_ to actually listen to what Jim said. 

That was Adam exactly, wasn't it? He followed orders... when he felt like it, with his own style, and using whatever interpretation of the rules suited him best. Jim never should have expected anything but this.

"I think that _someone_ in question might have also mentioned the importance of not bringing one's emotional baggage to a mission."

"Eh, maybe." Adam shrugged, fake-innocent. "Wouldn't be the first time I've been called insubordinate."

This was all too easy, too natural; if they kept on like this it would be the simplest thing in the world to slip back into their old routine. (And fuck, _fuck_ , Jim wanted to do just that. It would be so much less stressful to avoid that conversation entirely. Adam wouldn't push too hard. Avoidance was still an option.)

But avoiding the problem had screwed up his life enough already.

"Are you going to take those off?" Jim asked, gesturing to his own eyes.

Adam paused, clearly thinking something over, and then the shades drew back with a quiet _snikk_. Underneath, he looked... tired, mostly. Worried. Jim breathed a sigh of relief; at least he wasn't angry with Jim. (It was amazing, really, how much of an open book he became the moment the shields went down.)

"They don't come off, you know," he said. He reached up to run a metal finger against one of the equally-metallic crescents lining either side of his eye sockets.

"I..." Jim didn't even know how to _respond_ to that. "I didn't think you were gluing them on each morning."

Adam's mouth pulled down into a scowl that transformed every line of his face. "You know that's not what I mean."

As he spoke, he let the hand still hovering near his face break apart into bizarre, inhuman segments, the fingers extending until they looked like the legs of some overgrown spider. The same shit he always pulled when he was trying to disgust Macready—and he'd brought Jim all the way out to his apartment, only to act like _this_?

"Try saying what you mean, then, Jensen!" Jim took an irritated step forward, then another, until he was only an arm's length away from Adam.

He could almost see, in the shadows of Adam's expression, the closed-off asshole Aug that he'd once dreaded having on his team. It wasn't real, he _knew_ that man wasn't Adam—and that was the push he needed for his anger to crumble.

This wasn't Adam. Or, rather, it wasn't the real Adam; it was as much a mask as the shades he kept activated around just about everyone or the false cockiness he wore when he was hurt on a mission and trying not to show it.

Adam wanted to antagonize him. To push him away. But if he'd wanted to end this thing between himself and Jim once and for all, why had he invited Jim here tonight to begin with?

Jim looked at Adam. Looked at those still-extended, inhuman fingers, and realized what Adam was doing in the same moment that he realized what Adam had meant.

_They don't come off, you know._

Fucking idiot, Jim thought, not sure if he was referring to himself or Adam. The two of them really were far too alike.

He took a deep, steadying breath, reached one hand out to brush against the back of Adam's gleaming and segmented palm, and said, "Adam. I know they don't come off. They're a part of you."

Adam winced. The anger in his face disappeared as quickly as it had come. After a moment's pause, his fingers twitched and then slid smoothly back into place. He flexed them once or twice, as if trying to make sure they still worked; each small movement let his hand brush against Jim's more.

(It felt—strange. Not like skin. Not exactly like metal, either. Jim had never been allowed to touch these parts of Adam this much or for this long, and already he knew he was going to mourn the loss when Adam decided to pull away.)

"Yeah," he said quietly. "They are. And there's a lot of them. More than people realize."

"I've seen what your arms can do before. And your legs—"

"And my spine, ribs, heart, eyes, skull, most of the inner ear, part of the lungs, part of the dermis layer—" 

Adam rattled the list off with a terrifying casualness, as if he were giving Jim his grocery list and not telling him which parts of his body had been ripped out of him while he lay on an operating table. TF29 had given Jim a list of their own, of course, a file naming every augmentation Adam was known to have in stark black-on-white, but he'd never before understood just how vast the gulf was between reading _Dialectric Enhancer, Icarus Landing System, Infolink_ off a laptop screen and realizing just what Adam had lost to gain those.

"I'm just saying," Adam continued, "it's a lot. And I know you're not—fond of augmentations." 

"That's not true."

Adam raised an eyebrow.

"It's not," Jim protested. It was true he might have once found them just a little bit alien, just a little bit intimidating, stranger and colder than flesh, but...

Damn it. He sighed. "It's not true _anymore_ , at least. I know I can be"—a complete and total bastard, altogether too quick to judge—"stubborn, but you've more than proved me wrong these past few months. About a hell of a lot of things, but especially about you."

"It's not about proving you wrong," Adam said. For a moment a crooked smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, an answer to Jim's unspoken comment— _When is it ever not about proving me wrong for you, Jensen?_ —but in the next he was quietly serious again. "It's just that what happened the other night, it was... good." His gaze slid somewhere past Jim's left shoulder, blatantly avoiding his eyes. "And I realized that it was something I wanted."

"You already have me," Jim said, far too honest.

"Not like that. When you kissed me, it didn't feel casual. And it made me realize that I wasn't happy with—you know." He waved his free hand, summing up months of sneaking around like teenagers with a gesture.

"You're saying... what, that you have a crush on me?" 

Maybe he should have tried to sound less incredulous; in his defense, he was as baffled as he'd ever been.

"You're making it sound like I'm fifteen years old."

"But I'm not wrong."

Adam gave a defensive little half-shrug, still not looking Jim's way. "No. You're not. But—it wasn't fair to throw you out over that, and it wasn't fair to spring this on you. So. I'm sorry."

For a second, Jim was sure he'd heard wrong. He must have, because there was only one other option and that option was _Adam wants me_. Jim was closed-off, bad-tempered, washed up and as far from Adam's peak-of-his-prime skill as anyone could ever be. Impossible, that Adam might look at him and feel the same way as Jim did when he looked at at Adam.

Part of him wanted to deny it. Hell, part of him wanted to run.

Instead, he leaned in and kissed Adam.

For a moment Adam was statue-still, frozen; and then Jim pressed in closer, wrapping his hand around the back of Adam's palm as he did, and Adam came back to life with a strangled noise. He caught Jim's hand where it was pressed against his, flipping it over so he could tangle their fingers together, and his other hand—sleek and strange, and all the more perfect for it—came up to clutch at Jim's collar. His mouth opened for Jim, his hips ground against Jim's as he pulled him in.

And then he stopped, pulling back as far as the countertop at his back would let him.

"Jim," he said. His eyes were wide and dark; he looked startled. "I'm serious. I won't go back to how it was, between us."

"I know," Jim said. _You idiot,_ he didn't add, because that would be too hypocritical of him. They'd both been equally oblivious, it seemed. "That night, after you tossed me out—I couldn't stop thinking of you."

Adam swallowed. "Oh."

"I can't promise you much." Hell, between this job, the Orchid, and the Juggernaut Collective, Jim couldn't promise him he'd still be alive six months from now. "I'm hardly a catch. You know that. But... if you want to try, so do I."

"Hardly a catch." Adam snorted. "You always sell yourself so well?" There was something fond in his voice, though. And his touch, when he slipped his hand from Jim's shoulder up to cup his cheek, was even fonder.

"Okay," Adam said, and this time it was his turn to pull Jim back in.

Jim lost all sense of time; every part of his mind not devoted to basic muscle coordination was caught up in how good it felt to be able to touch Adam. 

He ran a hand up one of those dark metallic arms, marveling in the way the musculature was shaped and the little shivers he could wring from Adam by brushing against the inside of his joints just right; he fumbled Adam's trenchcoat off his shoulders, letting Adam pull away just long enough to hang it reverently on a hook near his entryway, and then pulled his shirt off so he could trace the lines of scar tissue there and run his mouth across the sensitive circles of metal set into his chest; he catalogued the noises he got out of him, wanting just another moment—and then another, and another—to try and find every last sensitive spot on his body. Jim would have never guessed augmentations could be so sensitive, but Adam reacted to having them touched even more than he did his actual skin. (Hell, Adam reacted like he was barely used to being touched at all.)

Jim came back to himself when Adam broke away with a gasp. His hair was a mess, his shirt was hanging off the back of the chair—and Jim was sure he himself had to look every bit as flustered.

"Probably not a good idea to keep doing this here," he said, voice rough.

"No," Jim agreed.

"So..."

It should have felt too forward. Instead, it only felt like he was finally making up for lost time. "I assume you have a bedroom somewhere."

Adam gave him a small, crooked grin. "You want a tour of the apartment?"

" _Yes_."

They stumbled down the hall together, stopping more than once for a kiss or a quick, desperate rut against the wall (Adam's steel-firm thigh between Jim's legs, Jim rubbing against the shape of Adam's cloth-covered erection, until one of them or the other remembered they had a destination in mind). By the time they made it through the bedroom door, Jim ached with how hard he was.

"Come on," Adam said, fumbling for Jim's shirt. The backs of his knees hit the bed; he let himself fall backwards, pulling Jim down on top of him, still trying to peel Jim's shirt off.

For a moment, Jim hesitated. There were scars, and stretch marks, and soft places where he'd lost the muscle definition he'd once been so proud of to long hours behind a desk. Certainly he couldn't match Adam, who with his shirt off more resembled some ancient Greek statue than a man.

Then Adam caught the hem of his shirt again and—staring at Jim with heat in his eyes—said, "Please?" and Jim let Adam pull his shirt over his head and toss it to the bedroom floor.

Adam groaned when his hands finally hit Jim's bare chest. He worked his way slowly upwards, rubbing gently over scars and tracing the lines of his body. 

"Fuck," he breathed, rubbing a thumb over a particularly nasty stretch of knotted scar tissue that wound its way over Jim's hip and up his chest. "Whatever this was, I'm glad you survived it." 

"Helicopter crash. Hurt like hell. And I wasn't glad at the time, trust me." He'd been the only survivor of anyone on board. For months after, he'd wondered why the hell someone more deserving hadn't gotten to live instead.

"I'm glad," Adam repeated, and then ran his thumb so delicately up the line of it that Jim shivered.

"Same to you. About"—he laid his hands on Adam's chest, followed the paths of the thick pale surgical scars, traced the seams on his shoulder where flesh gave way to metal—"all of this."

"...I wasn't all that glad either."

"Yeah." Jim almost didn't want to ask; the words slipped out before he could stop them. "Are you glad now?"

Adam's gaze drifted away, towards the far wall. For a moment he only lay there, unmoving, against the rumpled sheets. "Depends on the day," he admitted. "But—mostly, yeah." 

_Good_ , Jim thought. He didn't want to imagine losing Adam to anyone, even Adam himself. 

Carefully, he leaned in and kissed his way up the column of Adam's throat, where twin lines of nanocarbon lay stark against the skin. Adam clutched at his shoulders, breathing harshly, and when his hands wandered down Jim's back to the waistband of his pants Jim was all too ready to take them off.

He sat up long enough to fumble them off, kicking them to the floor—and this was going to be one hell of a walk back to his apartment after, he could already tell—and slid his underwear away after. Adam made a soft noise of appreciation at the sight of Jim's cock springing free, and reached out to brush his hand against the underside of Jim's shaft.

"Fuck," Jim groaned, and then, "Nothing you haven't seen before."

"Still. It's a good view."

Adam slid his hand down the length of Jim's cock, almost experimentally. "You want to, uh." He paused. "There's lube in the dresser next to you, if you want it."

Yes. _Yes_ , fuck, he'd wanted this for longer than he could admit. 

Jim fumbled for the dresser so quickly he would've been embarrassed if he had any self-consciousness left. He pulled a quarter-empty bottle out from the bottom drawer and set in on top of the dresser (next to the... electric candlestick, apparently, and suddenly he had even more questions about Adam's taste). 

Adam hesitated a moment when Jim reached for his belt; he caught Jim's hands, held them there—and then sighed, letting him go.

"It's... there's a lot. Just so you know."

Jim nodded. He'd figured it would be, just from how far into Adam's torso the metal of his arms stretched. "It's not a problem. Trust me."

"I do," Adam said, without hesitation. He reached up, stretching his arms up over his head in wordless permission, and Jim had to take a moment just to look at him like that—the sharp definition of his muscle, the contrast of skin and metal, how goddamn open and trusting and willingly helpless the pose made him look—before he could focus on undoing Adam's belt and pulling his pants off.

Adam naked was a sight to behold. His cock lay against his belly, slightly curved and already beaded with precum, framed on either side by skin and, just beyond that, the sleek dark metal that curved around his hips like vines. His legs were that same not-quite-human design: the feet too thin and blocky, the calves too sharply-defined, and yet for all it should've seemed strange to Jim he wasn't sure he'd seen anything hotter in his life. 

"Christ, Adam," he murmured, reveling in the way Adam's breath hitched at even just the slightest brush of Jim's hands against his inner thighs. "Can't believe you've been hiding this."

"You— _ah_ —want me to walk around the office naked?"

Now _that_ was a mental image. "Not the office. My apartment, maybe."

He could hardly believe he'd said it—some small panicked part of him that still believed in the chain of command, even now, was going _that's your agent!_ —but Adam only snorted a laugh. "You'll have to invite me over."

"I will." 

_Fuck_ , Jim thought. He wanted to take hours like this, just laying in bed beside Adam, running fingers and mouth up and down his legs to catalogue every last spot where he could wring noises out of him with a touch. But that would have to wait. He wasn't going to last long today.

"I want," he started, and then, "Can I," and before he could even finish the question properly Adam was reaching for the lube and pushing it into his hands.

"Here," he said, pulling his legs up to his sides.

Jim popped the cap, slicked up two of his fingers and his cock before dropping the bottle onto the sheets. He pressed his two fingers against Adam's hole, teasing, and Adam sucked in a desperate breath as he shifted against Jim's fingers.

"Come on," Adam hissed, "come on, fuck me."

He pressed his fingers inside Adam (taking in Adam's moan, the way he grabbed at the sheets) and twisted them, trying to slick Adam up as much as he was able. He pulled them out, drizzled on some more lube, pressed his fingers back inside—and already Adam was rutting back against his hand, pressing into Jim's touch as much as he was able. 

"That's good enough. Just—I want you."

"It might hurt a bit." Jim wasn't sure just how used to being fucked Adam was, but it had to have been a while for him too.

"I know." He bit down a moan when Jim twisted his fingers inside him, then looked up at Jim and gave him a small smile. It was the same Jim always saw when Adam was about to do something stupid on a mission or rope Jim into another bizarre scheme; it was a challenge. "Don't be gentle."

A shiver ran down Jim's spine. If that was how he wanted it—

"Okay," Jim said, making Adam groan as he pulled his fingers out of him once more. 

He lined his cock up against Adam's hole, teasing him for a moment with the head pressed _just_ there—and then slid into him in one slow thrust that forced a whine out of Adam's throat. 

When the head of his cock was seated inside Adam, he paused a moment, stilling his hips, waiting until Adam was grinding desperately back against him until he pushed in deeper.

"Fuck," Adam breathed, "that's it, yeah," panting and squirming as Jim pressed deeper and deeper into him.

As he was finally seated himself inside Adam, he gripped Adam's hips right where metal and skin joined. Neither of them was going to last long, not like this. He wanted to make the most of it.

Jim set a quick, rough, unpredictable pace, pulling out until just the tip of his cock rested inside Adam before slamming into him once more; making Adam arch and gasp; muttering all the while about how good Adam looked, how tight he felt, how long Jim had wanted to fuck him, a litany of embarrassing praise and desperate noises that he would have never admit to having come out of his mouth. (Adam was quieter, so much quieter—just the noises he couldn't hold back, bitten off moans and quick gasping breaths and the occasional raspy _yes_ or _please_ or _there_ —but the look in his eyes was all to easy to read.) Adam's hands stayed put—one clutching at the sheets, the other resting on his hipbone and occasionally squeezing hard enough to bruise—while Jim let his roam across Adam's body, mapping every part of him he could reach with his fingers.

When he felt himself getting close, he reached his hand between them to wrap around Adam's cock. 

"Come on, Adam," he said, running his finger over the slit, sliding his hand up and down the length of him. "Let me see you, just like that, let me—"

Adam came, hips jerking off the bed, painting Jim's hand and his own stomach. The sight of it alone—and the way Adam tightened around Jim's cock—was enough that Jim barely had time to pull out of Adam.

He let go of Adam to grip himself, hardly even needing the touch; his orgasm hit him like a bullet, leaving his body shaking as pleasure flooded his veins. That sharp, sudden peak rushed through him, and for a moment there was no one but Adam in the world and nothing important to Jim except for the way his body felt. He came across Adam's groin and thighs, adding to the mess there, caught up in the contrast of streaks of white against Adam's sleek dark legs.

Another few moments, and then the peak of his orgasm ebbed and crashed. He felt satisfied and empty and very, very tired.

Jim collapsed against Adam, head on his chest. Neither of them spoke. There was a sticky mess drying between them, he ought to be pulling himself upright and cleaning himself off—but instead he was preoccupied with the fact that he could hear Adam's heartbeat. The thump of it was just a touch too steady to feel real. It was soothing, somehow.

"I'm going to have to wash the sheets," Adam said finally. His hands came up to rest on Jim's back, holding him in a loose embrace.

"Mm." Jim nodded against Adam's skin. 

Adam shrugged. The movement shifted Jim's head. "I've got spares, at least. You're welcome to use them too."

It took Jim a moment to realize what Adam was offering, and when he did his heart leaped. A chance to stay the night, and a spot in Adam's bed. He'd told himself he wasn't allowed to want that anymore—too many disasters in his romantic history, too much chaos in his life right now—but _god_ he wanted it with Adam.

"I'd like that," he said. He dragged himself vaguely upward, enough to press a tired kiss to Adam's lips. "Thank you."


End file.
